This Sunday

As we continue our “Awakening” series where we are recognizing what life is like when we are awakened to the reality of the resurrection, we’ll consider what the resurrection has to say about families.

As parents we give our children the horizons of their lives. We teach them to love and laugh or we teach them to be negative and critical. We create pictures of God by the way that we live - and they become like us.

This Sunday

This Sunday is “Palm Sunday” - the day the church remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. We’ll read and reflect upon that story and we’ll be challenged to imagine the kind of Kingdom that Jesus brought to the city of Jerusalem 2000 years ago as well as the kind of Kingdom He might have in mind for Lafayette today.

Good Friday

The Friday of Holy Week has been traditionally called Good Friday. On this day the church remembers the arrest, trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

In an effort to remember the loneliness, pain, humiliation and suffering of Jesus, our Savior, we will be gathering for a Good Friday worship service on April 2 at 7 PM. The worship service will be an adapted version of a “Tenebrae” service. “Tenebrae” is the latin word for shadow or darkness. Throughout this service the lighting will be continually dimmed, eventually leaving the room in darkness. This powerful service will include Scripture readings, hymns, and worship songs.

This Sunday

This Sunday we are continuing in our series called “Savior” by reading and reflecting upon some of Jesus’ last words: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

We’ll notice that believing in God when we do not ‘feel’ him; calling on God when everything tells us that God is not there; crying out to God in the midst of our darkness is what faith is all about. It is what Jesus demonstrated in his darkest hour.

Because Jesus has been there, none of us needs to ever feel alone, forgotten or forsaken.

Good Friday

The Friday of Holy Week has been traditionally called Good Friday. On this day the church remembers the arrest, trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

In an effort to remember the loneliness, pain, humiliation and suffering of Jesus, our Savior, we will be gathering for a Good Friday worship service on April 2 at 7 PM. The worship service will be an adapted version of a “Tenebrae” service. “Tenebrae” is the latin word for shadow or darkness.

Throughout this service the lighting will be continually dimmed, eventually leaving the room in darkness. This powerful service will include Scripture readings, hymns, and worship songs.

Please plan on attending with your family. It is hard to celebrate a resurrection if you have not first experienced death. Participating in this Good Friday service will help to make your Easter experience even more significant.

Family Easter Celebration

This Easter season we are planning a fun event to celebrate with our church family and with the community on Saturday, March 20 at 10:00 AM. We will be start with a special presentation of the Veggie Tale’s “An Easter Carol” followed by an Easter Egg hunt for kids through 6th grade. We would love for you to bring your family and friends and have a great time.

Good Friday

The Friday of Holy Week has been traditionally called “Good Friday.” On this day, the church remembers the arrest, trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

In an effort to remember the loneliness, pain, humiliation, and suffering of Jesus, our Savior, we will be gathering for a Good Friday worship service on April 2 at 7 PM. The worship service will be an adapted version of a “Tenebrae” service. “Tenebrae” is the latin word for “shadow” or “darkness.” This powerful service will include Scripture readings, hymns, and worship songs. And throughout the service the lighting will be continually dimmed - eventually leaving the room in darkness.

Please plan on attending with your family. It is hard to celebrate a resurrection if you have not first experienced death. Participating in this Good Friday service will help to make your Easter experience even more significant.

Family Easter Celebration

If there was ever a time on the church’s calendar that calls for a celebration it is Easter. Join us on Saturday, March 20 at 1o AM for an event that will help the whole family celebrate Easter. The Family Easter Celebration will include the Veggie Tales film “An Easter Carol” as well as an Easter Egg hunt for children through 6th grade.

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time begins this early in the morning this Sunday (March 14). Be sure to set your clocks forward 1 hour before going to bed on Saturday evening.

The materials for week three of First Church University: The Kingdom Experiment can be found here. I look forward to gathering this Wednesday to hear how God has been using these discussions, explorations, and experiments to shape our hearts and extend His Kingdom.

In an effort to extend this conversation beyond just Wednesday evenings, each Thursday we’ll post the materials that we used to help us better discuss Jesus’ words in Matthew 5. If you weren’t able to join us last night, we’d love to have you next week.

The materials for week 1 can be found in PDF form by clicking HERE.

You can sense the tension we feel when we read these words by the way we normally try to explain them. We know that the poor, those who mourn, and the persecuted and oppressed are not really blessed. So we often say that Jesus meant that these people are spiritually blessed in spite of not being physically blessed. Or we turn these statements into a checklist of Christian morality. In other words, the Christian must be a gentle, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaker. There is some truth in both of these statements but I think somehow they miss the point that Jesus is really making.

Only in a world completely different from ours could these statements be true. In our world, the powerful, influential, and violent inherit the earth, not the gentle. In our world, the merciful are usually taken advantage of rather than receiving mercy in return. In our world… well you get the idea.

What Jesus is describing in the beatitudes is a world which operates by different rules than our own. He is describing the Kingdom of God, a kingdom which is backwards and upside down in comparison to the kingdoms of this world. These words are not an observation about how things are or a checklist of Christian virtues. They are a promise of what is to come, a promise that one day things will really be different. They are a promise that one day those who mourn will find real comfort and that the violent and powerful will not always control everything and that mercy, purity, and peace are really possible.

As followers of Jesus, we live in the hope of these promises. It is the promise of God’s kingdom which sustains us as the Church. However, it is not our mission to simply sit around and wait for this kingdom to show up. We aren’t called to just get by in this life until Jesus fixes everything. Instead, the hope that we have for the future impacts how we live today. Because we believe that our world will play by different rules when God’s kingdom finally comes, we want to live by those rules now as witness to the new reality that we anticipate with eager expectation.

This Winter at First Church University, we will be participating in a study of the Beatitudes entitled The Kingdom Experiment. It is a study centered on the beatitudes but it is much more than just a Bible study. It is an experiment in intentionally living out our hopeful anticipation of the Kingdom of God. In addition to a lesson on one of the beatitudes each week, there will also be experiments from which to choose. These experiments are challenges to live out the kingdom value of that beatitude throughout the week.

Each week we’ll discuss the meaning and implications of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5. We’ll also be challenged to try a ‘kingdom experiment’  - a tangible and practical response to who Jesus is and what He is calling us toward with His words.

First Church University: The Kingdom Experiment begins this Wednesday at 7PM.

I believe that this study can help us to see the Kingdom of God in new ways and I hope that you will prayerfully consider participating.

We hope that ‘The Text This Week’ provides space to journey together. We would love for you to comment on this blog post or on our Facebook Page (where ‘The Text This Week’ will automatically be posted). We would be thrilled if you would choose to read these passages together as a family or as a spiritual exercise with friends

Monday - Luke 12:13-21

How much do you need? Both Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5 identify greed as a type of “idolatry” of loving something more than God. Jesus’ sad parable reminds us that our life not about how much we have. The day comes for all when the only question is “who will get all the stuff I’ve accumulated?”

• One option never occurs to the man in Jesus’ story. He never says “I’ve got more than enough. Maybe I’ll give some of it away.” How easy or hard is it for you to be generous with the money, time, or stuff you have? What wishes or fears get in the way of generosity?
• How do you understand Jesus’ phrase about being ‘rich toward God?’ What steps can you take, in your day to day life, to increase this kind of wealth in your life? How can you share that approach with your family or other people with whom you have influence in your life?

Tuesday - Deuteronomy 15:7-11

God called the people of Israel to a level of generosity that neither they nor we have fully lived up to. Jesus quoted part of this passage - “the poor will always be with you.” Some would use that passage to argue against generosity but that only works if we ignore the second half of verse 11.

• Verse 10 suggests that God doesn’t just care about what we do but also about the spirit in which we do it. With what kind of spirit do you give? What have you found that increases your joy in giving?
• Greed is about getting and hoarding more than you need while gluttony is about consuming too much. How do you understand the ‘evil thoughts’ against which gluttony warns? What rewards might come with the type of generosity these verses call for?

Wednesday - 1 Timothy 6:3-10

In New Testament times, as today, some people saw religious teaching as simply one more chance for profit. The solution to their greed, the bible says, is not just outward change to their behavior. The key is an inner change. True wealth comes from a contented spirit; not a wallet or a bank account.

• Verse 7 states a basic premise for the whole Bible’s teaching about greed. How “permanent” do some of your main possessions feel to you? How vital is that sense of permanence to your inner security? How has your inner “need” for your possessions changed during this time of economic ‘crisis?’
• In verse 10 we read that “the love of money” is the root of all kinds of evil. Whom have you known who seemed to have plenty of money but lived free of “the love of money?” Have you known or been a person who, even if living in relative poverty, felt the tug “of the love of money?”

Thursday - Matthew 19:16-20:16

In today’s story a young man asked Jesus how to find eternal life. When Jesus told him to break the grip the assets had on his heart, the young man went away sad. Jesus told a second story, a parable, that illustrates God’s vast generosity toward us. It also shows how easily we slip into greed.

• Many affluent people in the bible were not told to sell all they had. Why do you think Jesus instructed this young man to do this? What made it hard for him to respond to Jesus’ call?
• Which group of workers do you most identify with in Jesus’ story - the ones who worked all day or the late arrivals? For what reasons? Do you find God’s ‘unfair’ generosity a blessing or a curse?

Friday - 2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Paul was gathering a gift for the Christians in Jerusalem. He was more concerned with the heart from which people gave, though, than the amount collected. “God loves a cheerful giver” was more than just a slogan. It was a serious call to check why they gave.

• What influences and ways of thinking most strengthen your generous tendencies? What influences and fears pull you away from generosity?
• Have you ever found yourself giving reluctantly? How did that affect you? What do you think were Paul’s reasons for valuing cheerful hearts and willing spirits even over the positives of collecting a larger offering?

We hope that ‘The Text This Week’ provides space to journey together. We would love for you to comment on this blog post or on our Facebook Page (where ‘The Text This Week’ will be automatically posted). We would be thrilled if you would choose to read these passages together as a family or as a spiritual exercise with friends. Basically, we would love for the conversation we’ve shared on Sunday to be extended.

Monday - Matthew 23:25-38
Jesus defied many of the legalistic rules and rituals the religious leaders demanded in his day. He also, however, opposed their efforts to look pious while privately living self-indulgent lives. People would whitewash tombs as a warning, because touching a grave could cause ritual defilement. But whitewash or no, there was still a corpse inside.

• Greed may lead us to hoard stuff even if it is unused. Gluttony, on the other hand, is about consuming. What inner forces make gluttony acceptable?
• If gluttony was, in some ways, a relatively “respectable” sin, why did Jesus use such strong langauge? What made the self-indulgence of the religious leaders hypocritical? In what ways can an addiction to consumption of food or other pleasures be like a dead body at the center of a person’s life?

Tuesday - Proverbs 23:19-21
Biblical wisdom saw gluttony, in all of its forms, as sapping our life’s energy. Gluttony is not about weight or body shape. It’s about trying to satisfy our appetite for anything in ways that put that desire at the center of our life. In gluttony, we end up serving a false god.

• When is indulging in too much food, or anything else, a coping behavior, a symptom of a deeper inner pain or problem? Under what conditions can the urge to consume too much become a problem in itself, rather than a symptom? How effectively can trust in God help us in either of these situations?

Wednesday - Colossians 2:16-23
Facing any of the deadly sins, our first thought often is, “Let’s make strict rules, for ourselves and others.” We tend to think the key to too much indulgence might be a strict diet - “don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle.” Paul tells the Christians in Colossae that just abiding by outward rules leaves the root problem untouched.

• Regulations, Paul says, seem wise but in themselves they do not change our inner desires. Have you ever tried to put yourself on a strict program (for any purpose) when you had not inwardly “bought in” to what you’re doing? What were the results? Why does inward change generally precede lasting outward change?

Thursday - Tituls 2:11-14
Paul says that the point of self control is not to take good things out of life but to free us to live effectively and joyfully for God.

• Do you equate the words “self control” with joy and freedom or with a sense of self-deprivation and sadness?

Friday - Matthew 6:25-34
Jesus invited us to trust that God really cares for us. In God’s hands, he said, we are safe for all eternity, no matter what challenges this life brings. He saw, as we often do not, that our obsession with food and clothing is usually rooted in fear. We consume more and more now, because we fear that sometime we may not have enough.

• Which of the good things in your life do you believe you have because of God’s care and generosity? Which of them do you believe you have because of your hard work, initiative, drive or careful planning?
• Jesus says that those who do not know God worry constantly about day-to-day things like food and clothing. In what ways have you sensed that your commitment to Jesus has reduced the “worry quotient” in your life? What additional burdens of worry would you like to ask Jesus to help you lay aside?